Can we give Zac tenacity back on his ult? He needs no other changes.

MaizeCraze··117 votes·5,474 views
 In Zac's champion spotlight, Phreak introduces Zac as " a slippery, melee disruptive tank who excels in the jungle or a solo lane". Zac's laning potential had almost no counterplay, so it is not surprising that the distance that his blobs are shot out was increased dramatically when there is an enemy nearby. 

 However, since the tenacity on Zac's ult has been removed, it has become extremely challenging for him to become the disruptive tank that Phreak describes him as, especially late game. Zac's ult lasts approximately 3 seconds. If he has 35% tenacity and get hit by, for example, a Lux binding, he is disabled for 1.3 seconds. This would also consume at least one bounce and end his initiation.

 If Zac had back the tenacity on his ult, he would be able to fulfill his disruptive function much better in teamfights. Increasing the knockback duration on his E to 1 second from 0.5 is a step in the right direction in terms of disruptive capability, but I think that it is an unnecessary change when compared to reverting tenacity on Zac's ult. If needed, the knockback range on his ult could be nerfed to compensate.

Edit: Math time

If Zac takes Tenacious and has treads (upcoming Cinderhelm enchantment doesn't grant tenacity) He will have approximately 45% tenacity. Using Lux's binding again as an example, it would last 1.1 seconds. One bounce takes approximately 0.75 seconds from launch to landing.

If Zac had 50% tenacity on his ult, he would have a total of approximately 72% tenacity. This means that a Lux binding would last 0.55 seconds. That seems a little short. I would think a good way to measure the tenacity bonus is that one bounce is consumed (with a 2 second CC). If Zac's ultimate granted 32.1% tenacity (round to 35% for simplicity's sake) That would be the outcome.

54 Comments

Terff25 votes

sounds good anything would help zac atm

Gank in Progress3 votes

{quoted}

sounds good anything would help zac atm

no thanks, release zac was broken enough dont give him this op tenacity.

Fede1 votes

Did anybody mention Irelia ?

Iron Rubric4 votes

Im guessing you just joined the game and have no idea what your talking about

MaizeCraze2 votes

[deleted]

Solaxo6 votes

{quoted}

Been playing since May of 2012. Next

He wasn't talking to you, smartass..

Crett23 votes

Here's what I'd like to see happen to Zac

5% HP scaling on passive (from 4%) 4 second cooldown on Q and W E 1 second knockup from .5 R, 30 second CD and immune to CC for duration

It all sounds way overpowered, but ask yourself this for a second. Kalista in a world where this exists, is this really too big a step

MaizeCraze9 votes

{quoted}

Here's what I'd like to see happen to Zac

5% HP scaling on passive (from 4%) 4 second cooldown on Q and W E 1 second knockup from .5 R, 30 second CD and immune to CC for duration

It all sounds way overpowered, but ask yourself this for a second. Kalista in a world where this exists, is this really too big a step

I do not agree that balance should be based around a certain champion's existance, in your case Kalista . If Kalista is an issue then she alone should be nerfed.

I have played Zac since release, and I can say from first hand experience that with 75% tenacity on his ult, Zac was broken. Most other champions with similar ultimates (to name some Malphite ,Gragas, Janna, Zyra ) have similar cooldowns to Lets Bounce!.

I do agree that Q would benefit from reduced cooldowns, but I think with a 2 second slow, a 4 second cooldown could be a little much.

W has a 5 second cd that is reduced by one second when he picks up a blob, which greatly helps jungle clear when utilized correctly and in fights averages about a 4 second cd.

When spirit visage is purchased, Zac's passive bonus is 4.8% of his max hp. This looks close enough to your mentioned value of 5%.

I haven't had a chance to test Zac on the PBE yet so I haven't been able to see the E changes in gameplay firsthand.

Crett2 votes

{quoted}

I do not agree that balance should be based around a certain champion's existance, in your case Kalista . If Kalista is an issue then she alone should be nerfed.

I have played Zac since release, and I can say from first hand experience that with 75% tenacity on his ult, Zac was broken. Most other champions with similar ultimates (to name some Malphite ,Gragas, Janna, Zyra ) have similar cooldowns to Lets Bounce!.

I do agree that Q would benefit from reduced cooldowns, but I think with a 2 second slow, a 4 second cooldown could be a little much.

W has a 5 second cd that is reduced by one second when he picks up a blob, which greatly helps jungle clear when utilized correctly and in fights averages about a 4 second cd.

When spirit visage is purchased, Zac's passive bonus is 4.8% of his max hp. This looks close enough to your mentioned value of 5%.

I haven't had a chance to test Zac on the PBE yet so I haven't been able to see the E changes in gameplay firsthand.

Heck, I always buy spirit visage; it used to bring his passive up to 6% before they nerfed it from 5 to 4%.

I'm mostly talking about ADCs in general. Tanks need love, but I don't think they all need to just be tankier, even though they can be melted pretty fast by an ADC. That's the ADC's job. I hate Kalista, but it's more of a general problem.

Some tanks need to be able to do their job better; some tanks are there to take hits (DrMundo Garen) and other tanks disrupt the enemy team, like Malphite and Zac. As it stands, Zac rarely can make a decisive play despite his awesome kit. He doesn't need to do more damage; he needs more access to these abilities. If you land your E on 5 people, you get 5 bloblets, which sounds convenient for your W. In practice, the last thing I or other Zacs seem to do after jumping into the enemy team is stop to grab bloblets. Generally, the biggest priority at that point is dealing with the team you just jumped into, which Zac is only decently equipped to do. The PBE seems to be moving his E into being a proper engage on it's own with a longer knockup, but I don't think that alone will put him on par with other engage tanks.

I guess most of all, though, I'm a whiny whiner and I want tanks buffed.

MaizeCraze1 votes

Heck, I always buy spirit visage; it used to bring his passive up to 6% before they nerfed it from 5 to 4%.

Some tanks need to be able to do their job better; some tanks are there to take hits (DrMundo Garen) and other tanks disrupt the enemy team, like Malphite and Zac. As it stands, Zac rarely can make a decisive play despite his awesome kit. He doesn't need to do more damage; he needs more access to these abilities. If you land your E on 5 people, you get 5 bloblets, which sounds convenient for your W. In practice, the last thing I or other Zacs seem to do after jumping into the enemy team is stop to grab bloblets. Generally, the biggest priority at that point is dealing with the team you just jumped into, which Zac is only decently equipped to do. The PBE seems to be moving his E into being a proper engage on it's own with a longer knockup, but I don't think that alone will put him on par with other engage tanks.

I guess most of all, though, I'm a whiny whiner and I want tanks buffed.

I agree with your arguements; they seem to be the same that I am making. Like you said, in most cases when I'm playing Zac, I don't think about bloblets. Usually when I E onto the enemy team, I will inadvertently pick up a blob during the fight. What patch on live changed his passive value from 5 to 4%? I looked on the wiki in Zac's patch history and didn't see it.

Crett1 votes

{quoted}

I agree with your arguements; they seem to be the same that I am making. Like you said, in most cases when I'm playing Zac, I don't think about bloblets. Usually when I E onto the enemy team, I will inadvertently pick up a blob during the fight. What patch on live changed his passive value from 5 to 4%? I looked on the wiki in Zac's patch history and didn't see it.

All I know is at one point they nerfed his passive from 5% to 4% healing; not sure on the details. It was a long time ago. I'm sure you'll find it somewhere if you look through the notes, but that may take a while.

MaizeCraze1 votes

All I know is at one point they nerfed his passive from 5% to 4% healing; not sure on the details. It was a long time ago. I'm sure you'll find it somewhere if you look through the notes, but that may take a while.

It must have been while he was still on beta then.

MasterVidallis1 votes

This is the reason why other tanks are played more. His blob mechanic is very strong in controlled environments (like laning and jungle) but in team fights positioning is everything and as a tank you put yourself in the most risky positions and have to try to stay alive while doing that. Up front Zac's ability costs just help the other team kill you faster, the cost of going after blobs in late game team fights is extremely high until things have winded down, at which point the fight is already won or lost anyways.

Tanks need above all survivability for late game, (like sej armor passive, malphite's passive, nautilus shield, etc) straight up defense, and that's what Zac lacks even though he is supposed to be doing the same thing those guys do. In a team fight where a lot of damage comes in really fast, you often don't have time to make use of a slow sustain skill like running around picking up scattered blobs, specially since you'll continue taking damage while you do that.

Change I would make to Zac's passive is so that instead of losing 4% health on cast of an ability he gains a stacking DOT for the same amount of self damage over 4 seconds. It doesn't improve his sustain in situations where he can get to the blobs with low risk anyways, but it would greatly help him in team fights to buy him some time.

pE4CbxDPQO1 votes

{quoted}

Here's what I'd like to see happen to Zac

5% HP scaling on passive (from 4%) 4 second cooldown on Q and W E 1 second knockup from .5 R, 30 second CD and immune to CC for duration

It all sounds way overpowered, but ask yourself this for a second. Kalista in a world where this exists, is this really too big a step

Tbh, that all sounds fine EXCEPT you have to choose if you want a 30sec CD or CCimmunity.

Crett1 votes

{quoted}

Tbh, that all sounds fine EXCEPT you have to choose if you want a 30sec CD or CCimmunity.

Yeah you're right. Spammable cc immunity sounded better in my head. I know a 30 second cd wouldn't break Zac, though.

Yfrappefort8 votes

Zac and Singed both lost their tenacity in the past, where tanks ruled the jungle and top lane (season 3).

That being said, so many things changed since then and they could really get that tenacity back. They need it in the current mobility/kiting meta.

Economicz2 votes

Look at his play rate- it's urgot tier. I say buff him and it would be best to buff him in a way that's true to his intended design.

MrSexyHobo2 votes

zac kills himself with his ult because no1 is going to pick up blobs while jumping into a 5 man team. his passive actually makes him far squishier than most dedicated tanks in 5 man fights where it counts. this is a massive design flaw

Bard in a Diaper2 votes

the thing is, he's just underplayed, not weak. I have a friend that plays him often that dominates with him and I know a few zac players in diamond. He's already incredibly annoying top lane, a buff would be brutal

MaizeCraze3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Quinn Caused 911,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6Es6gG1r,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2015-03-05T02:06:54.467+0000)

the thing is, he's just underplayed, not weak. I have a friend that plays him often that dominates with him and I know a few zac players in diamond. He's already incredibly annoying top lane, a buff would be brutal

If you are playing a champion that is 95% as good as your opponent, and you are more skilled than your opponent at your respective champions, then you will probably have more success than they do.

As much as Riot dislikes using win rates to justify a champion's balance level, they do have some truths. On a vast majority of the days I looked at, Zac had below a 45% win rate when played in diamond (only 3 times from Feb. 7 - Mar. 2 did he surpass that mark). I do agree that Zac isn't weak; however, I think a quality of life buff would significantly improve his functionality in the game.

Major Sparkles2 votes

Quality of life buff... What a general and vague term.

Slushi Simcambi2 votes

He really shouldn't be able to be stunned in his ult...

Think about it, he is already moving around, bouncing up and down. A stun doesn't even make logical sense.

MaizeCraze1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slushi Simcambi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6Es6gG1r,comment-id=000c,timestamp=2015-03-05T05:14:12.368+0000)

Think about it, he is already moving around, bouncing up and down. A stun doesn't even make logical sense.

I agree, but my counter arguement is all the champions who can go airborne and still be affected by ground based moves (Aatrox ,Gnar , Khazix , to name a few).

Slushi Simcambi1 votes

Yeah I think that needs to be changed too.

At least knock up shouldnt work. THEY ARE ALREADY IN THE AIR THAT SHOULDNT EVEN BE A THING

MaizeCraze1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slushi Simcambi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6Es6gG1r,comment-id=000c00000000,timestamp=2015-03-06T02:28:30.199+0000)

Yeah I think that needs to be changed too.

At least knock up shouldnt work. THEY ARE ALREADY IN THE AIR THAT SHOULDNT EVEN BE A THING

While it doesn't make thematic sense, it makes perfect gameplay sense. I asked a question during Gnar 's Q&A about the interaction between mini/mega Gnar and their opposite Q. Both reds who commented on my question said that while it makes no thematic sense for mini Gnar to pick up the boulder to refresh the CD on his boomerang (and vice versa), it would be very clunky gameplay wise if Gnar was unable to do so.

Slushi Simcambi1 votes

While that one example you used does make sense, I do think that knockups shouldn't effect leaps.

Just my opinion. A strong one though.

Martyrofsand2 votes

Zac with tenacidy on his ult was insane. Its one thing for a tank to be disruptive, its another thing when they are jumping all over your team and absorbing every CC resulting in them having no effect. There in lies the problem with giving him CC immunity, I mean really call this what it is for realistic purposes you are asking for CC immunity while ulting like he had before.

There was literally nothing you could do in the past about a Zac initiation. He would jump in drop his ult and you where pretty much stucm eating it as any attempt to CC him was a waste, and the problem was eating that CC was pretty much guaranteed death if he had a remotely competant team. If you want to give him some buffs that is fine but that toxic element of his original kit never needs to return.

Also to the guy that made the Irelia comparison. There is a difference in a bruiser with a single gap closer and situational single target stun/slow having a lot of tenacidy, she can still be killed quickly and will only disrupt one person. Zac would completely disorganize your entire team and prevent multiple people from being able to take action, and do it all with zero change for retaliation. Big difference.

Orbv1 votes

I remember this thoroughly. I don't know what division you're all in, but Zac in Gold in season 2 was WOW. He could literally face tank every single CC the enemy through, and still hit them all with his knock up. His tenacity was a huge strength, too strong. I wouldn't mind if it was 35% tenacity, but nothing more. Reducing stuns to half of their effectiveness including masteries is already very strong.

Martyrofsand1 votes

While I get your point if I remember correctly Zac didn't come out till Season 3. That said no amount of tenacidy should be added back to his ult, Zacs strength is his ability to come out of no where and just dominate a team fight. I have heard a lot of people make the comparison to Amumu doing a bandage+ult but amumu has to hit someone to close the gap which tends to telegraph it, even coming from fog of war, and gives time to react, because it bandage first followed by mummy. Zac doesn't do that he just shows off from a screen distance away and causes chaos.

If you want to give some type of CC resistance to him what I might say is let him remove a CC everytime he bounces, that way a CC will actually cost him part of his ult and also provide you a little time to react/reposition. Even doing this though might make it to strong.

MaizeCraze1 votes

{quoted}

I remember this thoroughly. I don't know what division you're all in, but Zac in Gold in season 2 was WOW. He could literally face tank every single CC the enemy through, and still hit them all with his knock up. His tenacity was a huge strength, too strong. I wouldn't mind if it was 35% tenacity, but nothing more. Reducing stuns to half of their effectiveness including masteries is already very strong.

Zac was not released until early Season 3. And 35% tenacity seems like the optimal amount (see my new math section in the post).

SlackerboyTC2 votes

But that would be helping him, why would rito do that?

Messaiga1 votes

His Ult currently removes slows, perhaps they should make it remove any type of CC? I don't know how much of an effect Tenacity would have on him (whether it would make him extremely strong or not affect him much) but the ability to remove CC after it's been blown on you seems like a fair buff. It'd also be nice if they made his blobs easier to pick up for the sake of his W, but I don't know how much that would affect his laning.

Lemons221 votes

I agree completely...give him his tenacity back on his ulti would do a world of good. I loved the old Zac cause you just jump in and you were unstoppable for those 3 seconds. Plus...you could bounce around more freely and pick up your blobs a lot easier as well. This change to his jump ain't going to do much imo. They need to stop beating around the bush and just put his ulti back to the way it was.

Final Raid Boss1 votes

they should make his e range scale with his level so you're not at such a disadvantage by maxing it first, yes the range is great but maxing q or w over it first would help a lot more in terms of clearing and his overall damage output. right now if you miss e when ganking that's literally all of your damage, it shouldn't be so hit or miss like that. i don't get why they keep on buffing it because that's not the reason why zac is in a bad spot.

the revive blobs are garbage, very rarely do i actually get away since they're so squishy. they shouldn't be so easy to kill considering you have a champ like aatrox who gets a guaranteed revive.

they should also make it so picking up x amount of blobs makes your abilities cost no hp for a short period of time, this would help immensely in team fights when you burn through a ton of hp and can't pick up your blobs. the tradeoff is you can't heal from any extra blobs though.

MaizeCraze2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Final Raid Boss,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6Es6gG1r,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2015-03-05T03:13:44.327+0000)

the revive blobs are garbage, very rarely do i actually get away since they're so squishy. they shouldn't be so easy to kill considering you have a champ like aatrox who gets a guaranteed revive.

they should also make it so picking up x amount of blobs makes your abilities cost no hp for a short period of time, this would help immensely in team fights when you burn through a ton of hp and can't pick up your blobs. the tradeoff is you can't heal from any extra blobs though.

The 8 second timer is way too high, I definitely agree that the passive has issues.

When you say picking up X amount of blobs, do you mean in the game overall?

Final Raid Boss1 votes

yeah that's another point i forgot about, the time it takes to revive is way too long, it really should be something like 4 or 5 seconds.

and i mean like say you pick up something like 5 blobs in a 10 second time frame then you can get immunity to your health costs for 10 seconds or so. it's just like a way to reward you for picking up your blobs and cutting down on the health you lose when your spamming abilities in big team fights and skirmishes- it's hard to focus on getting blobs and also disrupting/tanking for your team at the same time, so you just end up with a lot of lost health just through using abilities

another possible change is maybe have blobs move towards you when you ult

MaizeCraze1 votes

That could be interesting. The only thing to watch is how many blobs it would take to activate his immunity. I would assume it would have to be reverse scaling, as that could make jungle clears much less taxing early on.

Final Raid Boss1 votes

reverse scaling?

squirrelah1 votes

dumb this is what made top zac broken was sunfire cape spirit visage. They nerfed zac and then nerfed those items effectively making zac top useless. Zac jungle was actually not that big of a deal and not played that much.

Major Sparkles1 votes

You said the C word!!! Compensate that is.

MaizeCraze1 votes

{quoted}

You said the C word!!! Compensate that is. Quality of life buff... What a general and vague term.

The buff of tenacity to his ult is specific: the general category that the proposed buff falls under is quality of life.

Yordle Xayah1 votes

He was my favorite jungler in Season III... I miss him a lot

PepSakdoek1 votes

I feel the Zac "fantasy" is to be a huge tank, who jumps into the opponents from out of sight, and then disrupt them.

So huge tank, means he needs to be incentivized towards health. So stop making him scale with AP. I don't think Rylai's/Rod of Ages should form part of his fantasy (perhaps Liandry's as disruption is part of his fantasy). He should be going Sunfire, Warmogs, Randuins, Spirit Visage, etc.

So make his abilities have a % of HIS max HP scaling rather than scale on opponent's AP. I am using a 4000 HP Zac vs a 500AP Zac's damage. The HP version should do about half the damage of the AP Zac. So generally it's (500AP/4000HP)/2 to get to the new scalings. Q: MAGIC DAMAGE: 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+3.1% of Zac's max HP) W: BASE MAGIC DAMAGE: 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 / 100 + ADDITIONAL DAMAGE: 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% (+1.25% per 1000 HP of Zac) of the enemies' Max HP E: MAGIC DAMAGE: 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+4.4% of Zac's max HP) R: MAGIC DAMAGE PER BOUNCE: 140 / 210 / 280 (+2.5% of Zac's max HP)

Kuroi861 votes

Why not Tenacious in masteries and merc treads? That's 50% right there. His ult could grant some sure, but having an ult that can grant you complete CC immunity could be a bit strong on a high disruption tank like Zac. Would have to see how it worked out to be sure.

Alëk1 votes

I think that if they game him 100% tenacity in his ult they would have to remove the bonus mobility

femmé1 votes

tbh zac passive is more of a problem, it's so fucking useless compared to the other revive passive (aatrox has a guardians angel, anivias egg gets pretty tanky) so after you die they'll just finish you off because they're winning the fight. morgana or lux completely denies any point to picking him b4 the enemy jungle gets picked. so yea tenacity and a buff to the passive will bring him out of the top 5 least picked champs in the game.

GodofMountainDew1 votes

Honestly, I'd much rather them revert some of the knockback distance on his ult. It ends up knocking people out of my damage (and often away from my team) instead of how he used to be able to stick on top of them.

If they want to keep it as is, then tenacity or more movespeed would be a huge help.

MaizeCraze1 votes

{quoted}

Honestly, I'd much rather them revert some of the knockback distance on his ult. It ends up knocking people out of my damage (and often away from my team) instead of how he used to be able to stick on top of them.

If they want to keep it as is, then tenacity or more movespeed would be a huge help.

I've had this issue too. On the PBE, the knockback duration increase on E helps me get into a good position to knock back one enemy into my team, but that's not what I envision when I think of a disruptive tank.

TheUnseenRat1 votes

I think a good way to buff zac is to shift a little bit of his E power to his Q ( like add a 15 more base damage overall and 10% more scaling while reducing the same numbers from his e)

And Shift the 1 second reduced cooldown from his W to his E while keeping it on a flat cooldown.

This way zac jungle would be able to max Q first to add damage for his early game while not hurting the frequency of his ganks since he would reduce the cooldown on his E while farming camps.

something like:

Stretching Strike Magic damage: 75 / 115 / 160 / 200 / 245 (+ 60% AP) Slow: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40%

Picking up chunks created by Cell Division reduce Elastic Slingshot cooldown by 1 second.

Elastic Slingshot Magic Damage: 75 / 125 / 170 / 220 / 265 (+ 60% AP) Max Channel Time: 0.9 / 1.0 / 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 COOLDOWN: Flat 18

Plus in my opinion i think his Cell Division should revive him after 6 seconds and not 8 and his flying range of his blobs should reduce from 1000 to 850.

MaizeCraze1 votes

{quoted}

This way zac jungle would be able to max Q first to add damage for his early game while not hurting the frequency of his ganks since he would reduce the cooldown on his E while farming camps.

The changes you posted sound interesting. The passive is definitely an issue, blobs shoot too far and the timer is way too long on revive.

The one issue I have with this specific line is that, at least in my preference, I would still max E over Q because that extra 400 range on slingshot makes a HUGE difference when ganking.

I also think that Zac's early jungle clear would also suffer from the proposed W change. W comes up on average 3.6 times as often as E (more when E is lower than rank 3), even more so when picking up blobs is factored into the equation. The damage on W depends on each camp, but on the main monsters it will be doing upwards of 55 ( to level 1 monsters, level 1 W) on all monsters except Crimson Raptor compared to 80/130/180 on slingshot.

Without factoring blobs into the equation and taking the average of the main jungle monster's hp at level 1 (1593) and the frequency of spells, E would be doing 80/130/180 damage while W would be doing 229 over the same time period (assuming no AP).

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